


Don't be afraid.

by brownie_t



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Orphan Black (TV), Person of Interest (TV), The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Beloved, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Clexa References, Cophine references, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Don't be afraid, Early in Canon, F/F, League of Assassins - Freeform, Love, Love is strength, Nightmares, Nyssara, Ocean, Panic Attacks, Shoot references, Work Contains Fandom Elements, includes quotes from other shows, life is about more than just surviving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 09:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6324193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brownie_t/pseuds/brownie_t
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an angsty Nyssara fic with lots of heartache and feels. Sara experiences a panic attack and Nyssa feels out of her depths.<br/>You may find references to other fictional couples (Clexa, Shoot, Cophine) because I'm rude and this is a special request fic that needed to be my angstiest (but greatest) work ever ;)</p><p>P.s. You don't need to know about the other pairings to understand this fic, those references are more like little easter eggs woven into the Nyssara story. Nice to find them but not necessary to make sense of the story :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't be afraid.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oceanobsession](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceanobsession/gifts).



> Happy birthday again to my sister and dear friend Oceanobsession who already struggled with heavy emotions more than once while reading this story. Don't be afraid. It's okay. You're okay.

“ **I** can’t.“ Sara’s breathing was uneven, panic creeping its way into her heart, clouding her thoughts. “Please”, she begged, “don’t make me do this, I’ll do anything but don’t make me go in there, I can’t, I can’t, I - can’t… breathe”, she sobbed, her voice strained and her throat parched.

Fear was clenching her windpipe and pressing down on her lungs making it nearly impossible to breathe. She gasped for air and repeated “I can’t” until it was barely an inaudible whisper smothered by her heavy breathing. Her shaking knees gave in and hit the stony ground, her trembling hands tried to claw at anything immobile to stop the world from spinning and she only half-consciously noticed a stinging pain as she broke one of her fingernails and ripped open the skin beneath it. Sara felt like she was drowning all over again just while thinking about having to face that seemingly endless, blinding darkness and deafening silence pressing on her eardrums again. Hot tears sprung into her eyes and she violently squirmed with non-existent pain of water flooding her respiratory system, filling her lungs and choking her to death.

She couldn’t hear anything but blood rushing through her veins, her pulse pounding in her ears and water pressing on her eardrums, muting the sound of crashing waves right above her head. She couldn’t see anything but different shades of darkness, from brownish green to dark blue to pitch black, the obscurity of the ocean surrounding her. She couldn’t move even though she fought for control in the riptide throwing her body around like leaves have not control over where the wind takes them. She couldn’t breathe, once again captured in death’s icy, soaking grip.

Sara desperately struggled against the invisible bonds holding her back and pressing her arms against her body, immobilizing her and preventing her from swimming and resurfacing to catch some life-saving air. She was caught in her nightmare again, floating, yet not free but bound. There was no telling where she was, there should be almost zero gravity but she felt as heavy as never before.

 

 **N** yssa had never witnessed someone experience a panic attack before but she had read about them as she had always been very interested in the human psyche. She rationally knew how terrifying they could be but when Sara’s gaze went from slightly anxious to filled with horror in a matter of seconds, she felt her stomach drop and heart pound with guilt. She should’ve known not to push it. She should’ve told her father that this trial was unnecessary, that they’d never get into a situation requiring this sort of preparation. When Sara collapsed on the ground, for the first few seconds, Nyssa was paralyzed. She was out of her depths; this was one of the rare times she didn’t know how to react and what she was supposed to do and she felt like there was nothing that could possibly be able to help Sara. Her mind started spinning and articles and research she had read some time before, maybe even in another lifetime, flooded her memory. Once she overcame the shock of seeing her Beloved fall onto the floor, her body convulsing without any evident physical reason, she figured that the only way out of this attack was going through it, so she let herself sink to the ground next to the blonde and pulled her into a tight embrace. Apparently, exerting pressure on as many parts of the body as possible at the same time was known to calm down panicking people’s nerves and let their anxiety subside more quickly. Additionally, it only seemed reasonable to do the same thing she had done so many times in the past when Sara had been woken up by her own screams, so Nyssa wrapped her strong arms around her trembling Beloved and held her as tight as possible. To become a warrior and an appreciated member of the League of Assassins, intense and comprehensive training was necessary and overcoming fears certainly was a big part of it. But the woman she just held in her arms was terrified and traumatized. It didn’t do any good and simply wasn’t right to put her through the horrors of her past again. She shouldn’t be hurting like this. With any other person, this test might actually have been quite a pleasant change of scenery, some sort of vacation and opportunity to let go of constant stress and pressure even, but for Sara, it meant torment.

Water was an untamable element. Much like fire, it had the capability to soothe, to comfort, to heal and to calm the soul, while at the same time its immeasurable powers and violent strength could bear chaos and destruction, fear and loneliness. While for one person the ocean could be home, for another it could be purgatory. And for someone like Sara, who had spent days utterly lost in the fierce and cold grip of the ocean, it surely was a source of terror. 

 

 **A** lgae twined around her legs, pulling her deeper down into the piercing cold depths of the sea, slick seaweed became entangled in her arms, or was it her own hair sticking to her freezing skin? Not a sound escaped her parted lips, every attempt to scream was muted by tons of water squeezing the air out of her lungs. Her eyes were open wide, salt burning her retinas, and yet she couldn’t make out anything remotely definite in the blur of brownish green water around her, she might as well had shut them. She was lost in her nightmare, completely unaware that neither was she being thrown around by a pandemonium of breaking waves, nor threatened to vanish into oblivion in the vastness of churning waters that she had survived twice before.

Sara’s desperate struggle for breath displayed not only the physical danger she had been in too many times but also the emotional stress being lost at sea had put her through. Loneliness had crept under her skin, she had felt atomic compared to the immeasurable infinity of the ocean and the cold had not only possessed itself of her body but she had felt her heart freeze as little by little, memories of her loved ones, her family, her old life had faded. Even after the first shipwreck, once she had gotten a hold of some wooden pieces of the wreck that had once been the Queen’s Gambit and had no longer been drowning, she had felt utterly lost and had given up on life altogether. She had been aware that she might have been the only human in those relentless waters but certainly hadn’t been alone. She’d floated in a sea that was home to deadly animals, predators waiting for her to become too weak to fight death any longer. Sunken treasures, wrecks as big as the titanic could have been sprinkling the bottom of the ocean miles beneath her, she would never know. Salt and sand in the water had chafed her skin, shells, rocks and pieces of wreckage had cut into her flesh, she had swallowed too much saltwater leaving her dehydrated surrounded by tons of water, the sun had been shining relentlessly hot and had burned her already soar skin to the point of breaking. She had wondered how a romantic boat trip could so suddenly turn into a burial at sea. When all of this agony had repeated itself and Sara once again had felt herself suffocating, seized with panic and as hopeless as she’d never been before, she had been on the brink of giving up. Just in time, Nyssa had been there to save her. After being lonely for such a long time, after everything the ocean and men had put her through, it had taken her months to build up a relationship with Nyssa that was trustful enough for her not to anxiously wait in her chamber for Nyssa’s return from her missions. Knowing exactly when she was supposed to be back, Sara would be standing at the window of her room scanning the area for the familiar sight of Nyssa’s League outfit. She had felt that every time the Heir to the Demon had to leave Nanda Parbat, she had to fear that she wouldn’t return because of Sara being too big of a mess.

 

 **S** he had hoped that they were over this. That Sara was over this. As far as Nyssa knew, she had never had a panic attack before, but in the first few weeks after she had found her, Sara had woken up screaming almost every night. It had gotten better with time but her nightmares returned more frequently after Sara had finished her first solo-assignment. When one night Nyssa had finally decided she couldn’t bear hearing the blonde one’s screams of inner torment anymore and had walked over to her chamber, she had found Sara pressed into a corner of the room, crying, rocking back and forth and trying to catch her breath much like she was now. She had never told Nyssa what her dreams looked like, but it was apparent, that whatever she experienced now had to feel very similar.

“It’s okay, Love, I’m here with you, it’s just me, I won’t hurt you but I won’t let go of you either, okay?”, Nyssa soothingly muttered, her voice low but steady, and she kept holding Sara’s back pressed against her front, her hands locked with Sara’s in front of her stomach. Sara was fighting for her life and even though Nyssa was strong and trained, she noticed her muscles slowly becoming tired from the continuous tension. While Nyssa tried to convince Sara that there was no need to panic, her mind still raced rapidly. She had never felt more powerless than when the blonde was squirming in her arms, her clothes sticking to her toned and strong body due to images in her mind bathing her in cold sweat. She could take care of her Beloved in all the ways she knew, she could love her and protect her and train her, teach her and make her a warrior. But Sara’s inner demons were nothing she could fight. Whatever had the blonde pant for breath in panic fear was untouchable for Nyssa and it made her feel helpless in a way she had never known. It didn’t matter how many times Sara had slowly recovered and stopped shaking in her embrace, it didn’t matter how many times her sobbing gradually subsided, how many times she regained control over her senses and looked up into Nyssa’s dark brown eyes, shaken but grateful to know she wasn’t alone anymore. It didn’t matter how many times Nyssa carefully guided Sara to the nearest bath to cautiously wash the sweat off her cold skin. It didn’t matter how many times she caressed her Beloved’s sore muscles afterwards, trying to make her feel warmth and comfort and safety again, trying to take away her sorrows, trying to make her see the morning light after the night. Every time she found herself embracing Sara’s trembling body again, every time she muttered “It’s okay, you’re okay” and “Don’t be afraid”, she felt exactly as useless and weak as the last time and the time before.

 

“ **C** an you hear me?” The words sounded foreign and out of place to her ears but yet, she tried to focus on the soft voice that continued talking to her soothingly. Fragments of sentences made their way through the rushing of water that had blanked out every other sound around her. The hushed but steady voice in her right ear became more distinct with every second.

“- afraid. It’s okay. You’re okay. I protect you now. Don’t be afraid.”

Sara slowly regained enough consciousness to notice that what the disembodied voice said to her was repeated reassuringly. She briefly wondered how many times she had already heard the words without listening to them. She felt the pain in her chest ease a little, as gradually, the pressure of water lifted from her lungs and her breathing wasn’t as impeded anymore. The next thing she realized was that the disembodied voice in fact did have a body. The invisible bounds she had been fighting against actually had been strong arms that pressed her own arms against her sides and hands that held hers tight. While trying to catch her breath, Sara turned her head towards where she knew her hands had to be and slowly, she made out her own fingers entangled with slightly darker ones, long and strong and preventing her from hurting herself. The voice was clearer in her ear now. “You’re okay.” She knew this voice. She recognized it, though not exactly knowing where to sort it. It was a voice that calmed her, a voice that she had listened to many times before. It was a voice that made her feel grounded. And grounded was good. Grounded meant she wasn’t floating. Little by little, Sara’s vision cleared and she became aware of red stains on both their hands. Did she hurt the other woman? Seconds ticked by while Sara was trying to slow down her breathing and grasp who was holding her.

 _Nyssa_. It seemed like her heart all of a sudden had decided to take matters into its own hands and make her not logically but emotionally recognize the assassin. Her mind was only slowly recovering but Sara didn’t need to think clearly to feel that this woman was the one person she could trust not to let her die in unknown waters. Relief flooded her cells as she realized that she wasn’t drowning. She wasn’t even swimming. In fact, she was suddenly aware of stony ground beneath them and inhaled deeply. Once, twice, breathe in, breathe out… The air rolled over her tongue and filled her lungs, it tasted fresh and clear, it smelled like oranges and vanilla masking the lingering faint smell of sea salt. Nyssa’s scent enveloped her, made her feel safer and protected and slowly, Sara convinced her body that it was okay to relax into the assassin’s embrace. A memory flashed before her inner eye. She saw herself sitting on cold asphalt, leaning against the hard surface of a brick wall, the bitter aftertaste of a cigarette on her tongue. It had been almost completely dark, not only around but also inside her, until she had perceived the scent of the Heir to the Demon in the night air. Oranges, vanilla and cinnamon combined in an aromatic but discreet perfume wavering through the air.  It had been the first night she had felt utterly lost and broken since the League had nurtured her back to health. It had also been the first night she had connected with Nyssa in another than strictly professional way, even though just by the touch of her hand. Much like back then, Nyssa’s presence now calmed her nerves and gradually, the trembling in her body ceased and her woolly thoughts found the right direction again.

 

 **N** yssa stopped repeating her mantra once she noticed that Sara relaxed into her embrace. However, she kept holding her tight, breathing evenly so that Sara would be able to orient her own breathing by the assassin’s. The brunette’s heartbeat calmed down as she felt that Sara’s panic attack subsided. She hoped with every cell of her body that, maybe someday, Sara wouldn’t have to suffer from her past like this anymore, she hoped that one day her Beloved’s demons could be slain forever.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

Sara’s voice sounded raw, shaky and the lack of strength in it made the sentence sound raspy in Nyssa’s ears and made her heart ache for her Beloved. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she whispered: “Me, too”, and gently placed her chin on Sara’s shoulder, loosening her grip on the blonde’s body and allowing both their arms to slacken a little. Sara continued to stare at their entangled fingers feeling a dull pain pulsing in her right forefinger. She apparently hadn’t hurt Nyssa but only herself and the blood stains on Nyssa’s hands were what she smeared while trying to get free. The bleeding had stopped already. She felt guilt sinking into her stomach like a stone. What if this happened again? If this was just the first of many times of falling into a nightmare while being wide awake? What if one day, given all her training and Nyssa’s reticence to do what was necessary when it came to her, she actually accidentally hurt Nyssa? What if she somehow managed to free herself from Nyssa’s grip and turned on her, projecting her irrational fear onto the woman she loved more than she had ever loved anybody before, and hurting, or worse, accidentally killing her? What if she was just broken, unfixable, going crazy? What if she wasn’t only an unpredictable danger to herself anymore? She knew that, if the worst came to pass, Nyssa wouldn’t be able to do what needed to be done to stop her.

“The world must seem very dark to you”, Nyssa spoke under her breath. She sensed her Beloved’s gloomy thoughts and it pained her to see that even though to her Sara was a light in the darkness, there were so many open wounds under the surface of Sara’s scarred exterior preventing the blonde from feeling unburdened.

“The world is dark for everyone… but things are gonna get much darker for you with me being around, I guess”, Sara reluctantly replied, stunning Nyssa.

“Why would you ever say that, Love? You are the brightest light in my life, you always were.”

Sara shuffled out of Nyssa’s embrace until she was able to turn around and look into the assassin’s face, not entirely surprised to see tears glistening in her eyes. As strong and fierce and relentless the Heir to the Demon could appear, ever since they had finally figured out and consensually established that they both had non-professional, romantic feelings for one another, Nyssa hadn’t bothered with hiding her emotions from Sara anymore. She would never show weakness in front of anyone but her, Sara was sure of that. However, she had realized that her love for the younger woman wasn’t weakness but that, in fact, it made her even stronger to know there was more to this life than duties and responsibilities, that there was someone else who she wanted to share her life with, someone who was home to her.  
_Home is where one can surrender completely without fearing pain_ , Nyssa’s words echoed in Sara’s mind. There was no use in hiding already existing pain at said home.

“You know, it’s just that I’m not… I come with a package” Sara tried to explain wearily. She gently lifted her unharmed hand up to Nyssa’s face and lightly touched her soft skin as if it was fragile. How did she end up being loved by this wonderful woman? After everything else in her life becoming a mess as she stepped foot on Mr. Queen’s yacht, she had found one good thing in a place where she had least expected it: facing death.  She let her fingertips brush from Nyssa’s cheek down to her jaw-line and over her bottom lip. Nyssa shivered at the touch and for a brief moment, her eyelids fluttered shut. When she opened her eyes again, Sara cupped her cheek with her hand and let her thumb tenderly stroke up and down in small movements.

“I’m probably the most problematic partner you could’ve chosen, Nyssa”, Sara continued, her gaze wandering over Nyssa’s face, her lips and then resting on her eyes. “I’m messed up, I have battle scars no one can see, I carry so much darkness in my heart – it’s only a matter of time until you realize that you’re better off without me. “

Nyssa opened her mouth to immediately stop Sara from saying such things but Sara silenced her with a gentle touch of her thumb, placing it on the assassin’s lips.

“I keep falling back into nightmares, keeping you up at night, crying like a baby. This attack is a new low, even for me. You repeatedly have to look out for me because I’m too weak to do it myself, you end up being bathed in my sweat way too often and I don’t mean that in a pleasant way.”

A smile tucked at Nyssa’s lips but she respected Sara’s need to speak and remained quiet even as Sara lifted her hand from her face and let it drop back into her lap.

“I don’t think Ra’s approves of me. Your love for me… I think it might hurt your reputation. And I don’t want you to get hurt because of me. Ever. It’s not only the fact that I am a woman - that may be adding to his reluctance to accept me as your partner, you know, since I can’t get you pregnant…” She huffed a little and continued: “But more importantly, to your father, I’m a liability. He thinks I’m not good enough for you and frankly, I have difficulties arguing with him on this matter.” Sara looked down at her hands and added quietly: “I’m a mess. I hoped that I would be better, that I would be fine by now. And I want to hold out hope, but hope is painful.”

“Look at me, Love”, Nyssa lifted Sara’s chin up with a soft touch of her fingertips. She wanted to see that Sara understood what she was about to say to her.

“You are right, I’m afraid my father doesn’t like you very much. But even he cannot blame me for feeling what I feel for you. It wasn’t a choice I made. I didn’t want to fall for you. I wasn’t supposed to. But I have. The one thing he can blame me for is not hiding my emotions. I chose to be with you because I knew that I would never be able to feel like I felt before I met you. Not that I would have wanted to. But it simply would not have been possible. Even if I pushed you away, I would not have been my old self, there is no going back, there’s no way to un-know things, to un-feel them. I couldn’t have been the Heir he expects me to be while constantly missing you. Being with you is the only way I am capable of separating feelings from duty. He knows that. That is why he has to accept my decision. And frankly, I couldn’t have chosen more wisely, you are the most extraordinary person I have ever met. Give yourself a little credit.” A warm smile appeared reassuringly on her lips and neither her voice nor her eyes showed any sign of hesitancy anymore. “You lost everyone you’ve ever cared for. I can see why it might be difficult for you not to pin that on yourself. But even though you lost everyone, it does not mean that you are not worth happiness anymore.”

“Not everyone”, Sara whispered, a lump in her throat and tears glistening in her eyes.  
“Not you.”

She pulled Nyssa closer and rested her forehead against the brunette’s.

   
**T** he muffled sound of a vibrating phone in one of their bags on the nearest boat made them both startle. Nyssa briefly played with the thought of just letting the phone ring but she was aware of the fact that it was very likely her father calling and not answering despite not being unavailable, at least as far as his definition of the word went, was certainly not something she wanted to add to their list of concerns.

She sighed and placed a lingering kiss on Sara’s forehead before she got up to walk over to her bag, noticing that her legs were a little shaky from the earlier tension in her body. The phone was still ringing when she dug it out of the backpack, the caller was obviously persistent. By now, she was sure to see Ra’s al Ghul’s number showing on her display and once Nyssa checked the caller ID, Sara could clearly detect a postural change in the Heir, showing that it indeed was the Head of the Demon calling.

Nyssa grit her teeth, shot her Beloved an apologetic look and answered her phone. “Father”, she stated and listened for a few seconds. “I am not going to explain this issue over the phone. Let us come back to Nanda-“, her face went blank as he interrupted her and she ground her teeth. This was unnecessary. However, it didn’t help anyone to argue any further so she decided not to take her chances and bit back her anger about the realization that, obviously, Ra’s al Ghul had planned on Sara failing this test. Instead of speaking her mind, she just asked coldly: “What are your commands?”, listened again, nodded and stated: “Of course” before she hung up.

After stuffing her phone back into the backpack, Nyssa walked back over to Sara who by now had managed to get up from the floor of the boathouse and sit down on a bench next to a window. The Heir to the Demon dropped to her knees in front of her Beloved and looked up at her attentively. Reaching for her injured hand, the brunette whispered: “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you like this. I swear that a situation like this one will never occur again”. She placed a gentle kiss into the dirty and blood-stained palm of Sara’s hand.

“I survived. Actually I wasn’t even in real danger. Guess it was all in my head”, Sara smiled weakly and sighed. “It just… It was unthinkable for me to put all this gear on”, she gestured over to the boat that held all their equipment and bags, “and go right back into the ocean… I mean I get that diving is supposed to be beautiful and an exceptional experience or something but… I can’t do it. I’m sorry I failed you.” She shook her head sadly. “Being here, being on the ground – I need to know that I’m not floating. It’s the only way I know I can survive…”

“Maybe life is about more than just surviving, Love”, Nyssa softly replied and squeezed the blonde’s hand reassuringly. “And you did _not_ fail me. You were hit with anxiety and there is nothing you could have done to prevent that. I should have been more careful. I should have realized that Father deliberately let me try to convince you to do this. You are right, he is never going to approve of us being one.” Nyssa sighed and her expression showed regret. Not for choosing to openly declare her love for Sara and thereby earning her father’s not too subtle disapproval, but for not being attentive enough and blindly following the orders of Ra’s al Ghul instead of using her own head and heart to see whether she should maybe rather not do that. At the end of the day though, she would have to follow most of his orders even if she didn’t think them wise. She was not in the position to question Ra’s. Not yet at least.

They remained silent for a while, looking into each other’s eyes and finding comfort in each other’s presence, until Nyssa cleared her throat and regretfully stated: “I must go now. I hate to leave you like this, Love, but my father commands my presence on another assignment not too far from here”. Sara understood, suppressed a sigh and softly brushed a strand of dark hair behind the Heir’s left ear.

“Places to be, people to kill… I get it”, she grunted, an exhausted smile ghosting around her lips. “I’ll be fine, Nys”, she assured the assassin. “Do I have to travel back to Nanda Parbat without you? Or will you come back?”

“I will return. The assignment in question should only take a few hours. Asif was just taken out by his target’s security detail. His blood must have blood.”

Sara sent a silent prayer for the fallen assassin’s soul. She hadn’t really known him very well but they had been sparring partners once or twice. He had seemed to be a kind man. Meanwhile, Nyssa had continued talking, her tone softer now, showing Sara she wasn’t talking business anymore. “I will take you back to our apartment and make sure you are safe for the time being. You can take a bath and get some rest and I will be back in no time. And I will bring food so that we can stay in tonight, alright? I won’t be gone for long, I promise to be back as soon as I can.”

A more joyful smile tucked at Sara’s lips as she noticed how concerned the Heir to the Demon was about her well-being. She didn’t want Nyssa to feel sorry for something she could do nothing about and felt grateful to know that if there was any other way, Nyssa would stay with her at least until she fell asleep. Nevertheless, she knew Nyssa had to get her head in the game and stop worrying about her to complete the assignment so she quipped: “Why now, what’s with the hurry? We don’t want you to screw up the mission, do we?”

Nyssa sighed relieved. It was the light tone in Sara’s voice that made her heart feel a little lighter as well. She got back on her feet gracefully and raised Sara up with her, pulling her into a tender embrace. After a few seconds, she placed a kiss on Sara’s damp hairline, took a small step back and shot a deep look down at Sara that was filled with love and warmth and a hint of wit.

 

“The hurry? Oh well, I guess there are things I care about here.”


End file.
